Early life
Elizabeth was born in Kudat in British North Borneo (today Sabah). Her great-grandparents had been assisting German missionaries in Hongkong and their work had brought them to North Borneo. There, the Yong family set up a coconut plantation. Her father had been the eldest in a family of 11 children and after completing his early education in China with some English education in North Borneo, he gained employment as a civil servant. Marrying the daughter of a priest from a well-respected family in North Borneo, he was transferred to Jesselton and later promoted to District Officer and moved on to Borneo's interiors in Kalimantan. Elizabeth was looked after by a Kadazan nanny and acquired Kadazan as her first language.
Education
Later, Elizabeth's father was posted to Tenom where there were no educational facilities, so Elizabeth and her siblings were sent back to Kudat where her paternal grandfather ran the village school, teaching in Chinese. Her higher education was taken at St Monica's School between 1921 to 1929, an Anglican missionary boarding school in Sandakan. Because the teachers could not pronounce Chinese names, she adopted the English name Elizabeth. In 1925, she and her aunt Jessie became the first girls to sign up in North Borneo's inaugural Girl Guides Company. By 1927, she was teaching the lower standards even whilst she was studying.In December 1929, she came to Singapore to further her studies at the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus at Victoria Street. She shone academically, obtaining the Prize of Honor in her first year of school in December 1930. She resided with her fourth uncle at Selegie where he ran a music shop, the original T. M. A. at High Street. The untimely death of her mother in 1931 and the onset of the Great Depression placed upon her the burden of raising her six younger siblings. Thus she forwent a college education, even a possible scholarship, to start work so she could finance the education of her younger siblings